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Saturday, June 25, 2016

Summer Book Club 2016

There are always students ready to lead book club discussions

When the library began having summer hours during the 2013-2014 school year, I decided to make book clubs available to students during the summer months as part of our library services. During that same school year, we had our first student led book clubs. We have discovered that there are always students willing to lead book clubs in the library. This will be the third summer we have held a club. We decided to read The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey. One of our upcoming juniors, Nathan, volunteered to lead discussion activities for three sessions.

We started promoting this club during the last few weeks of school. Ten students signed up by the end of the school year. I used Remind to send text messages to book club members to help them remember the book club meeting dates and page assignments. One of our principals even sent out a phone message to all parents in grades 8-12 advertising the summer club. Nathan and I also decided to use the library Edmodo page as a place to continue discussions between meetings. Using Edmodo was also a great way for students to participate that could not attend our meetings.

We just had our first meeting last week. Six students attended the meeting. I always read with the students and participate in the meetings as a facilitator. Nathan started off the hour long discussion with many questions he had prepared . Some of his questions are listed below:

What do you think the aliens want?

What is the 5th wave?

What do you think the aliens are?

What do you think the aliens look like?

What do they want the children for?

Book discussion!

I'm always impressed by the discussion during our book clubs. The students often dig deeper into story components. I have yet to have a club meeting that doesn't run long. The students just keep talking about what may happen next and what characters should do.

Following the discussion, we decided to watch the movie trailer to The 5th Wave. I also reminded students how to access our Edmodo library page so the discussion can continue. Our last two book club meetings will be in the middle and end of July.

Consider trying a summer book club during a portion of summer. If it makes a difference in one or two students, it is well worth it!

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